A Texas woman who suffered damage to one of her front teeth in an incident of domestic abuse was recently given a new reason to smile by a good Samaritan dentist.

On New Year’s Eve in 2014, Kyleigha Scott’s former boyfriend headbutted her in the face and broke one of her front teeth. Since then Scott had avoided looking at her smile in the mirror, revised the way she spoke so her upper lip covered her top teeth, and gave a “closed-mouth” grin in photos taken of her and her two-year-old daughter.

“I don’t look as happy as I felt in those pictures because I couldn’t express myself through a smile,” said Scott, 28, who is a server and cashier from Marshall.

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“To this day, I still don’t know why he did what he did,” Scott said in an interview with CTV News.

Scott eventually broke free of the abusive relationship, but said that her broken tooth was a constant reminder of that painful time in her life. Even so, she could not afford to have the tooth fixed.

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According to Global News, an infection in one of Scott’s wisdom teeth prompted her to go to the emergency room, where she was prescribed antibiotics and told to seek dental care. Through a friend’s recommendation, Scott sought treatment from Dr. Kenny Wilstead of Marshall Family Dental in Marshall, Texas.

Because Scott had taken a second job, she had just enough money to afford a wisdom tooth extraction.

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After removing the troublesome tooth, Wilstead asked Scott how her front tooth became damaged. Scott shared her story of abuse and said she was planning to have her front tooth fixed when she received her income tax returns in 2018, WDSU-TV reported.

Wilstead said, “I’m not going to wait for your tax returns. That’s next year. Let’s fix this right now,” which he did by crowning the tooth in only 10 minutes — free of charge — then shared a video on Facebook that captured the the moment Scott saw her new smile.

“She just kind of fell apart. It’s the happiest I’ve ever seen anybody in a long time,” Wilstead said. “She was laughing and crying at the exact same time.”

Scott said there were no words to express how she felt when she looked in the mirror.

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“That 10 minutes that he took to give me what I thought I lost a long time ago back is the most indescribable, beautiful, joyful emotion,” she said. “I wish that I could come up with a new word for how I felt. I was just like immediately, ‘Oh my God, you’re back. Like hi, how have you been? I’ve missed you.'”

Scott said, “I actually saw me again and not someone broken.”

After Wilstead fixed Scott’s tooth, she said she “had to learn how to smile again” but now she “just can’t stop.”

Wilstead was so touched by his interaction with Scott that he offered to provide her with a complimentary smile reconstruction, valued at $20,000.

“When I see a patient come to the office and tell me they’re going to use all their tax returns or they’re going to go out and get a second job, I really appreciate that and I respect that a lot,” Wilstead said. “If they’re willing to do everything on their end then I’m willing to do everything on mine.”